Wednesday, November 03, 2004

Aw, man, I gotta have a life now?

I was Sunburned for Liberty the week before the election at a Space Coast rally. I mean, that’s The Love. Nick the NASA Poobah scored my ticket as well as a prime place in line. Doors opened at 10:45; he reported to the front of the line at approximately four in the morning. ("THIS ADMINSTRATION FORCIBLY DRAGS THE AMERICAN PEOPLE OUT OF BED AND CONTRIBUTES TO SKIN CANCER!!!!")

“Where are you?” he said at 8:15.

“Um,” I said, looking around my apartment, which was an hour from the stadium. “Just about there!”

The line was an excellent opportunity to socialize, and also pick up and get picked up. I noticed one particularly comely conservative passing out Viva Bush! stickers and asked Nick, as my personal pimp, to survey his marital status.

“No ring,” he reported after a brief reconnisance.

Ex-cellent,” I said, ensuring that The Rack was sparkling in the early morning light. "Go fetch."
Let’s all give me a round of applause for my keen sense of Who's Who, as saw this guy again an hour later, when he gave me a big smile. Of course, as a state Senator he was onstage delivering a pep talk, and was beaming at our whole entire bleacher section, but it was clear to the world that he totally wanted me.

Nick missed the budding relationship between me and Senator Hotness, as he was at the concession stand. When he returned, his face was grim.

“What?” I said as he unwrapped a hotdog.

“Heinz ketchup at the snack bar,” he said.

You know, sometimes in life, you’re standing there, and Marine 1 choppers over the horizon about twenty yards from your head. This happened to me, and, okay, it. Was. Awesome. It landed directly on centerfield, "spraying," the AP made certain to point out, "dust over supporters standing on the grass." ("THIS ADMINISTRATION HAS NO REGARD FOR THE PROPER MAINTENANCE OF BASEPATHS!!!!")

W talked to us, and we all waved at each other some more, and then Buzz Aldrin got in on the waving, and at one point a small yellow plane buzzed past the stadium. Everybody in the crowd exchanged glances. The airspace... was kinda sorta restricted today. Hey buddy, after you land? Tell your new cellmate we said hello.

Then the F-16 roared by.

Then the small yellow plane made another pass.

Then the second F-16 roared by.

Now we’re all exchanging glances again. “Oh shit,” the glances said.

The President, it must be noted, continued talking very earnestly about the deficit. Nobody was looking at him anymore, including me and Jeb and Buzz Aldrin and all the Secret Service agents, which… yeah, that made EVERYBODY feel better. You could kind of understand it, though: Anthrax was clearly about to drop out of the sky over us all, which was, granted, not the most comfortable feeling in the world, but at least then we personally wouldn’t have to worry about the deficit. It seemed a fair exchange.

(Turns out the small plane was merely the vehicle of a local aged asshat [degree: mega-] who was flying from New York to Boca Raton. You think he’d check into whether or not the President of the United States was swing-stating in a large open space ten days before the election, but, you know, people get distracted in their rush to make the Early Bird Special at Golden Corral.)

Letters From the Blue and the Red

Weeeeeelllllllll, there’s been a bit of traffic here in The Champagne Tasting Lounge over the past twenty-four hours. Greatest email/comment hits:

“I imagine you sitting up in your living room finally knowing your candidate won, eyes heavy with no sleep, mind fuzzy, you stand and crawl to the computer to post 'It is over' in victory. Once posted you curl into the fetal position and, finally, fall asleep wrapped up in your afghan shaped like an elephant. Sleep well, MB, your work here is done.” –IsSanityNear

“This election has been like two hours of frustrating sex—I just wanted it to come already.” –Anonymous

“I had a nearly identical experience today driving my kids to school, saying the Rosary. I was too embarrassed to call my mother. I think I got them right, though.”-amdg

“You've delivered Indiana even without Flip’s help. Win-win for you and W, lose-lose for Flip. Give me this poor guy's phone number, I'll buy him a beer.”-MilGuy

Man am I glad this is over with. Someday I might once again have the ability to keep down solid foods.

pile on at blondechampagne@hotmail.com

It's done.

"It's done."

-John Adams, 1776

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

Important Update From the Swing State of Ohio

My mother just referred to Dan Rather as, quote, "Diddleypoop."

Election Freakout UPDATE III

Pacing around like utter maniac, went rollerblading. Lights went out in the parking lot. Kept skating. Rolled over three or four small frogs. Am an evil conservative, so kept skating.

Playlist:

My Sharona
In the Shelter
Sidehackin'
I Would Walk Five Hundred Miles
If the House Is Rockin'
I Love You For Sentimental Reasons
Riverboat Gambler
This One's For the Girls
Hey Mickey
Walk Like An Egyptian

One minute to Glenn Beck's Insider Broadcast. I have his webcam up and he's toting his newborn son around. Fortunate child, he'll be completely unconscious through this whole thing.

Election Freakout UPDATE II, 5:47 PM

First crying meltdown complete. Second glass of wine pending.

Exclusive Election Freakout Coverage

begins downpage. Scroll baby scroll.

intimidating at: blondechampagne@hotmail.com

Voter Intimidation UPDATE IV

G-Force provides this very important report from Brevard County:

“Florida is the most f***ed-up voting place I have ever been.”

Voter Intimidation UPDATE III

Flipper, a noted Kerry supporter, voted early this monring, for some reason doubting my assurances that she should enjoy a nice leisurely dinner since the polls are open until well after seven tonight. Her precinct uses a Scantron thingie, which beeps when you feed your ballot through the machine correctly.

“What happened when you put your ballot in?” I asked.

“It beeped,” she said.

VOTER INTIMIDATION! HER MACHINE WAS INTIMIDATING HER!!

Election Freakout UPDATE, 1:38 PM

First glass of wine COMPLETE.

Voter Intimidation UPDATE II

This just in from Nick the NASA Poobah on Swamp Voting, Space Coast Division: He was waiting in line outside his polling place, and some screaming woman drove past in a pickup truck.

“What did she say?” I asked.

“Something, something, something ‘ashamed,’” he responded. “I couldn’t hear it all.”

“And were you intimidated?”

“Nah.”

“How did you feel?”

“Hungry, mostly.”

USA! USA!

Voter Intimidation UPDATE

Country the Brother-In-Law (his actual name is “Britton,” or possibly “Greg,” but my sister introduced him to me as “Britton” and I said, “You’re dating a COUNTRY?!”) reports in from Ohio: He entered his voting booth and found a stack of Kerry literature. Country is approximately nine feet tall, though, so he doesn’t intimidate as easily as one might think. He turned the packet in to a poll watcher, lay down on a fainting couch for a little while, and went to work.

Voter Intimidation

I’ve done all I can for this election, now, except beg. So I went to Mass.

The church I attend is one of those awful gym-like Vatican II affairs with the tabernacle helpfully separated and hidden from the actual parishioners, but fortunately the building is currently under renovation to make it even more horrible. There are mounds of dirt and cranes and liturgical dancers scattered all over the place, and happily it turns out to be a polling place besides, so this morning I got to dodge furious lost people as well.

The great thing about voting in a construction war zone is that it makes it difficult for the literature-shovers to find you. When I drove past, one of them attempted to intimidate me by standing around with a sign, but it was approximately the size of an index card, so I have no idea what it said. As you can imagine, I was very, very shaken.

Daily Mass in these drywalled parts takes place in a small, ugly chapel behind an extremely inspiring cardboard curtain. Voting was taking place directly on the other side of the divider, so we were kneeling there during the consecration with “PLEASE LINE UP ALONGSIDE THE FAR WALL AND LEAVE ALL LITERATURE…” as background music. I thank Thee, Lord, for this half-hour of respite from all things election.

Things are so unhinged around here that I turned to the Big Guns and got down on my knees with my Rosary. Today is Tuesday; we recite the Sorrowful Mysteries on Tuesdays. I did the Sign of the Cross. I said the Apostle’s Creed. Annnnnnd—knelt there.

And knelt there.

And knelt there.

I could not remember the Sorrowful Mysteries. A lifetime of rounding the beads, and I was utterly vapor locked. This was the set, I knew, that was somewhat depressing, what with all the whipping and the carrying and the crucifying, but I couldn’t remember the order, or the titles, and I considered going home and getting a prayer book, but then I couldn’t remember where I parked my car, either.

“Hold on a sec,” I said to the tabernacle, and got up and called my mother to tell me what they were.

“You need to calm down,” she said.

“Right,” I said. “Who is this again?”

An official from Orange County stopped me as I left. "Did you vote?" he snapped. I dropped my missalette and ran away, because... voter intimidation on your way out? MOST. RIDICULOUS. STATE. EVER.

Lock the Vote

Well... here we are.

I don’t know about you, but I for one will terribly miss the various electoral count scenarios. Nothing like reloading Drudge every four seconds for updates on how if Bush wins New Mexico, Florida and Colorado and Kerry claims Massachusetts plus Detroit and the vote of Rodney Dangerfield, we will definitely, depending on the turnout of transvestite nuns in the Northern states and middle aged half-Hispanic males who take their cheeseburgers without mustard, perhaps know the outcome of the election between 1 AM and the next total eclipse of the sun as determined by high tide in Japan and how many times Tom Brokaw has wiped his ass today. The polls are great too: “Well, Bush is up by one in Ohio and OH Kerry is pulling away in Pennsylvania but wait Gallup has them neck and neck EEEE here come the Zogby numbers…”

If it weren’t for these pesky morals, and also the fact that I look like crap in bright orange, I’d be in Ohio right now, double-voting. It seems I’m still registered there, according to my parents, who have been fielding all the campaign literature and voter registration information flooding into their mailbox under my name. So I told my sister to trot Jim the Baby Nephew to the polls in my place.

“Are you taking him into the booth with you?” I asked.

“He will stay in his stroller,” she told me.

I asked to speak to him.

“Jailbreak,” I said.

Jim thought about it for a minute, and then said “Aaaaaaaaaannnnwwww!” which I took as a solid Bush lean.

Also, if Barbra Streisand is reading this? LOSE MY NUMBER, Babs. She called my house at nine in the morning and I slammed down the phone so fast the nightstand crashed through the floor. I let Rudy Giuliani get three or four words out before hanging up on him, but really… admit it, fellow swing state voters, all these famous people calling us? I’m going to have trouble letting go of that. I am NEEDED! Until approximately four hours from now, when Curt Schilling will no longer give a rat’s ass about my political concerns. But until then, I am totally being used, and it is awesome!

I won’t be at the polls today, because through the magic of fraud I’ve already had my say via early voting. As you may recall, my vote here in Florida is so important, so vital, that it went from my apartment to the post office and directly back to my apartment again.

So I called the Board of Elections, and was on hold for twenty minutes, which totally confirmed my suspicion that my experience was a complete fluke and I was the only person in the whole entire state to have issues with casting my ballot. I was told to turn in my ballot at my early voting location, a branch library, which sounded like a good idea until I went in the door and the librarians all looked to be in various stages of homicidal.

The line was enormous. Optimistic dip that I am, I was under the impression that my visit would merely involve dropping my ballot in a box, but noooooooo, this would make sense, so I queued on up. After a time it became clear that I was in danger of realizing my absolute worst nightmare—being trapped in a boring place without a book—so I ducked into the Mystery section and got me some Dick Francis. Read four chapters before we passed the bathrooms.

One woman eyed me enviously. “Aren’t you smart to have brought a book!” she said. Yeah, too bad we were in a LIBRARY and she couldn’t lay her hands on anything to READ.

Now, I’m very proud to be casting my ballot for the President, and I’m sure that Kerry voters are also...well, I’m sure… okay, let’s just say that everybody has a right to their opinion. I myself follow a hard-and-fast guideline at the polls that may be referred to as The Dixie Chicks Rule: You have your say in the booth. Otherwise? STFU.

I was thrilled to see that the opposing side adhered to this as well. One woman popped up in line wearing a Kerry button, which… You know what, I WAS going to vote for Bush, but NOW? Now that I’ve seen your BUTTON I have totally changed my mind.

So I regarded her as merely another American having her say, and stood quietly.

She did not.

I didn’t catch everything she said, but I did hear “Karl Rove… oil…frat boy” float down the line, which gave me a general idea of what was going on up there. The people around me began to shift uncomfortably.

“I give her ninety seconds to a ‘Hailliburton,’” I said to Dick Francis' author photo.

“And, you know, Cheney is knee-deep in…”

The line crawled. I began to crave a sausage biscuit.

The American democratic process is not a perfect system, but it is a great nation that can include on its ballot both the sitting President AND Ralph Nader, who has clearly begun to believe that he deserves to be king because some watery tart threw a sword at him.

When I got to the front I held out my stamped, cancelled, trod-upon absentee ballot and asked for further direction. The envelope was checked for evidence of tampering and a proper signature across the back. Then things got complicated.

The poll worker pointed to a box. “Put it in there,” she said.

It had a huge padlock on it and a plastic strip to signify that the box hadn’t been tampered with for at least the last twenty minutes. Well, if nothing else, Florida gave Al Gore his lockbox.

I put my vote in the box, but although I kissed the envelope AND the mailbox for luck the first time I attempted to cast it, I did not plant one on the lockbox, because that would be weird.

Election Extra from Dennis Miller:

VOTING INSTRUCTIONS

1) Did you register?
2) Did you bring ID?
3) Did you take your head out of your ass before arriving at the polls?

P.S.: I'll be heavily updating throughout the day--by which I mean maybe twice--so if yesterday's very important post about cookies gets knocked off the page, go here.

Election Day Entertaiment

DO not miss this. Or, in a very big way, this.

Go W, it's your birthday!

**Grandma, this one's for you and Uncle Jim and the sacks of ballots you used to haul from the precinct to the BOE on Election Day. I know you're working hard for us up there. I love you.**

Monday, November 01, 2004

We Meet At Dawn

As a person who pays an extra $15 a month to live in an apartment complex with a gym, I would like to bitch about walking seven miles the other day.

Walking seven miles for free in a neighborhood with chalk outlines at every bus stop is known as “shoe leather politics”, or “hitting a total stranger's doorbell with a four-color brochure in hand, hoping that whoever answers the door is at least 50% clothed.” This election has been described as hand to hand combat, but seriously? I didn't expect to have to show up with actual weapons. Once the election is over, I expect, at minimum, a Cabinet post.

Most precinct walks are performed in pairs, so that if one of the walkers gets shot, the other can call back to headquarters and ask for a ride to the next district (we are very devoted walkers, here in The Swamp.) The thing about precinct walking is, you never know what to expect. You could be assigned to a cute little business district, the heart and soul of American capitalism. You could wind up in suburbia, with tricycles... and a 4-runner in every driveway...and 2.5 children holding hands while skipping through sprinklers... and all. Or, in my case, you could find yourself on the set of Bladerunner, courting alien abduction.

Far be it from me to make snap judgments about the moral composition of a person by the outside of their homes, but when the first house you see has a boat up on blocks scriptfully entitled "The Island Trash", let’s just say… I’m going to have to respectfully decline any block party invitations.

In addition to enjoying the streets paved with crack, I was also underhydrated. They were offering bottles of water at the campaign headquarters, but it was Dasani, the composition of which is 4% water, 96% Morton’s salt. So I went without, but I was also on anti-spew meds, which made for that exquisite human condition of dying of thirst and yet having to pee at the very same time.

Also—and you are going to be downright shocked by this—I found myself disoriented. I parked on the side street with the fewest amount of bullet casings and started making my way around, and by the end I was still missing one of the houses on my list, located on a tiny street called “Kirk.” But there is no giving up in Bushville—537 votes, he won by only 537 votes last time, we constantly repeat unto ourselves—and so I asked a passing mailman for directions. He stubbed out a cigarette on his Glock and pointed me in exactly the wrong direction, which I discovered only after realizing that I had already passed this here pawn shop and that particular prostitute and was now walking in circles.

So I admitted semi-defeat and headed back to the Millennium Bellemobile, which I fully excepted to find stripped, but did not, as apparently even the felons have standards where sunroofs are concerned, and started hunting down Kirk Street vehicularly. Which wasn’t going too well until I made a complete circuit of the neighborhood and found myself right back on the street I was parked on, which, according to the street sign, was—-say it with me now—-Kirk.

There was also phonebanking to do, which was far safer but also far more depressing. Phone banking involves dialing the fax machines and disconnected numbers of total strangers and directing them how to vote, which is exactly the type of call I’m always eager to receive. We had a little script to read, which thanks to campaign finance reform (is it just me, or is the only apparent reform to campaign financing the added bonus of hearing, “I’m so-and-so, and although the production quality is piss-poor and I just accused my opponent of having sex with baby sheep, I approve this message”) included the fact that the call was paid for by the Republican party, which had the added bonus of making us sound like total tools instead of merely electoral busybodies. One of my fellow callers got around the caveat by beginning each answering machine message with, “This is the Republican party calling!” which seemed kind of okay in theory, but this guy was approximately four hundred years old, tending to leave the impression that the Republican party sounded like the Pope muttering into a bus station intercom. After a while he also started adding “Go Bush-Cheney!” but in this very tiny, very frail voice that may actually help us, because, listen, if I were a swing voter and came home to that message on my machine, these words that were clearly the last gasps of a man on his deathbed, I know which way I would vote.

I was facing a small television set while making my calls, and Fox was broadcasting wall-to-wall campaign coverage. I’d see W and then Lurch and then Big Time and then The Breck Girl and then W again, but it was difficult to discern the date and location of the Presidential footage, because the man apparently never changes his shirt. The President was wearing this chambray blue shirt at his campaign kickoff rally in Orlando back in March, he was wearing it last week at Space Coast Stadium, and frankly I’m starting to think he was so craptacular in the first debate because he dared to campaign without it.

Sometimes I would get a Bush voter on the line and exchange sympathies. “I early-voted for Bush,” one woman told me. “Who wants Ichabod Crane for a President?”

But in all the calling was horrible, as expected, because it put me in contact with people who should never, ever have the right to vote. Example:

“I’m calling from the Bush-Cheney campaign—“

“The what, honey?”

“The campaign to re-elect President Bush and Vice-President Cheney.”

(Pause.)

“Is that some kind of cookie?”

Democracy! Getcha some!

bartender pour the wine at: blondechampagne@hotmail.com

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